Testimony
before
the United States Senate, Subcommittee on Science, Technology,
and Space of the

Committee
on Commerce,
Science, and Transportation

on

"The
Brain
Science Behind Pornography Addiction and the Effects of
Addiction on Families and Communities"

November
18,
2004

Good
afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I am
Judith Reisman, Ph.D., President of The Institute for Media Education,
Scientific Advisor to the California Protective Parents Association and
the Subcommittee on Junk Science for The American Legislative Exchange
Council's April 2004 report.1

I
specialize in the communication effects of images on the brain, mind
and memory; fraud in the human sexuality field; and the addictive
properties of sexually explicit images, commonly called pornography.2

My
working, scientific definition of pornography is measurable:
"intimate
private-space
behavior
in
public
space
forums,
provoking
psychopharmacological responses in viewers that puts the model and
those s/he represents, at risk." See Appendix
A.

Thanks to
the latest advances in neuroscience, we now know that emotionally
arousing images imprint and alter the brain, triggering an
instant, involuntary, but lasting, biochemical memory trail.

This
applies to so-called "soft-core" and "hard-core" pornography, which
may, arguably, subvert the First Amendment by overriding the cognitive
speech process.

Once our
neurochemical pathways are established they are difficult or impossible
to delete. Erotic images also commonly trigger the viewer's "fight or
flight" sex hormones producing intense arousal states that
appear to fuse the conscious state of libidinous arousal with
unconscious emotions of fear, shame, anger and hostility.3

These
media erotic fantasies become deeply imbedded, commonly coarsening,
confusing, motivating and addicting many of those exposed. (See "the
Violence Pyramid" at http://www.vbii.org/violence.html).

Pornography
triggers a myriad of endogenous, internal, natural drugs that mimic the
"high" from a street drug. Addiction to pornography is addiction to
what I dub erototoxins - mind altering drugs produced by the
viewer's own brain.

How does
this 'brain sabotage' occur? Brain scientists tell us that "in 3/10 of
a second a visual image passes from the eye through the brain, and
whether or not one wants to, the brain is structurally changed and
memories are created - we literally 'grow new brain' with each visual
experience."4

Children
and others who cannot read can instantly decode and experience
images, hence images are not speech.5
In fact, erotic (any highly arousing) images commonly subvert left
hemisphere cognition.6

Since the
50s, as pornography became mainstreamed and pushed the envelope of
normal sexual conduct, law enforcement reported that sex crimes
mimicking comparable acts were being inflicted on women and children.
(See OJJDP study)7

I have
spent decades addressing the effects of pornographic "humor" and photos
on children, fathers, husbands and wives and communities, much of which
is found in my book, ''Soft" Porn Plays Hardball, 1990,8
in my U.S. Department of Justice, Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) report, Images
of Children, Crime and Violence in Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler,9and in my white paper on "The
Psychopharmacology of Pictorial Pornography: Restructuring Brain, Mind
& Memory & Subverting Freedom of Speech"
(http://www.drjudithreisman.com/brain.pdf).

A basic
science research team employing a cautiously protective methodology
should
study
erototoxins
and
the
brain/body.
As
with tobacco, these
data could be helpful in public education and in legal change.

Testimony
from victims and police commonly finds pornography to be an
on-site-sex­abuse manual. 10

An
offensive strategy should be planned mandating law enforcement
collection of all pornography data, as with guns, drugs, etc, at crime
sites.

Judges,
police, legislators and lawyers should be trained in the hard data of
sexology fraud and erototoxins as changing the human brain, mind,
memory at unconscious levels and therefore absent informed consent.

Congress
should consider ceasing the funding of educational institutions that
train their students via the flawed methodology of Kinseyan
"academic" pornography.11

Congress
should consider determining which sexology institutes have received
financial support frompornographers. Based on this obvious conflict
of interest, their authority to confer professional credentials or
to hold themselves out as expert witnesses might be rescinded.

These
initial steps can help reestablish the blessings of liberty and
tranquility for our children, our communities and our country.

2 I also document the ways pornography
commonly
involve "estrus" displays, falsely presenting human females as
non-human animals in "heaf' and triggering both anger and libido in
male, even some female, viewers. The full definition relies upon the
four scientific disciplines of Proxemics, Ethology, Neuropsychology and
Psychopharmacology, seen ve in Appendix A.

3 Richard Restak, (1988). The Mind, Bantam
Books,
New
York.
"Inhibition rather than excitation is the hallmark
of the healthy brain. If all of the neurons in the brain were
excitatory we would be unable to do something as simple as reaching out
for a glass of water, " p. 283.

5 On the undeveloped adolescent brain
and its
lack of cognitive maturity see Science,

''Neuroscience:
Crime, Culpability, and the Adolescent Brain," Vol 305, Issue 5684,
596­599, July 2004. Shall teenagers under 18 get the death
sentence--based in part on brain studies, pp. 596-599.

6 See Gary Lynch in Restak (1984). "The
Brain,
Learning & Memory" The Annenberg/ CPB Collection, in
his discussion of the way arousing images alter the structure of the
human brain, WNET/NY, full documentation in 8. Exhibits 1 and 2.

7 Exhibit 1.

8 Exhibit 2.

9 Exhibit 3.

10 John Rabun, now COO for the National
Center
For Missing & Exploited Children. See Senate Hearings on "Effect of
Pornography on Women and Children," 1984. In that Senate hearing, Rabun
testified that when arrested, "all, that is 100%" of rapists,
pedophiles, etc., in their study possessed adult pornography, "such as
Playboy, on up." Also see Dr. C. Everet Koop on pornography as a
"crushing" health problem, in American Medical News, (October
10, 1986).

11 Exhibit 3. See JA Reisman, Kinsey,
Crimes & Consequences, 2003, pp. 160-180, esp.
170-'80:
for the use of the SAR, Sexual Attitude Restructuring, as days, weeks
or months of viewing pornography to be "accredited" as a certified sex
educator, or to earn a Masters, PhD., etc., in Human Sexuality, AIDS
Prevention and the like.